Young people are sick of lockdown

@SavantaComRes polling shows young people are disobeying government Covid guidance — and who can blame them? pic.twitter.com/5a7c7g7xZa

— Paddy Hannam (@paddyhannam) March 24, 2021

Data from Savanta / ComRes reveal that 42 per cent of 16- to 34-year-olds only follow government Covid guidance ‘sometimes or less’. This is a rise of seven percentage points since January. Only 38 per cent obey the advice ‘mostly’ and just 20 per cent ‘entirely’.

This is hardly surprising. Young people are among the least at risk from Covid-19, but have been some of the hardest hit by lockdowns. For most of the pandemic, they have been unable to attend school or university in person. And they are also more likely to be in the kind of precarious jobs crushed by lockdown. They can hardly be blamed for getting fed up with it all.

And they aren’t the only ones in revolt. Grannies have been joining in, too. Four in 10 over-80s broke lockdown rules after being vaccinated, it was reported in March.

Let’s not forget that well over 25million people in the UK have been given their jabs – including nearly every vulnerable person. Deaths and hospitalisations have collapsed. We can’t expect young people – or anyone – to wait around for the government’s glacially slow plan for reopening society. It’s time to end the restrictions and get back to normal.